‘Harry Potter’ actor to star in movie based on another best-selling, award-winning British children’s book

Jason Isaacs will star in another film adaptation of a best-selling, award-winning British children’s book. Isaacs — famous for portraying Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films — will play a role in The Boy at the Back of the Class, based on Onjali Q. Rauf’s lauded children’s book. The English actor, whose earlier features include Black Hawk Down, Peter Pan, and Hotel Mumbai, will act alongside Oscar winner Vanessa Redgrave and Slumdog Millionaire‘s Freida Pinto. 

Over half a million copies of The Boy at the Back of the Class have sold in the United Kingdom since its publication in 2018, per The Hollywood Reporter. The book has received several awards, including the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize, the Blue Peter Book Award, the Sheffield Children’s Book Award, and the Janusz Kor-czak Prize.

In The Boy in the Back of the Class, we follow Alexa, a ninth-grader, and her friendship with a new student named Ahmet. Penguin Random House writes: “There used to be an empty chair at the back of Mrs. Khan’s classroom, but on the third Tuesday of the school year a new kid fills it: nine-year-old Ahmet, a Syrian refugee. The whole class is curious about this new boy–he doesn’t seem to smile, and he doesn’t talk much. But after learning that Ahmet fled a Very Real War” and was separated from his family along the way, a determined group of his classmates band together to concoct the Greatest Idea in the World–a magnificent plan to reunite Ahmet with his loved ones. “

Director Stephen Herek (101 Dalmations) will helm the picture from a script by Tim John. Studio Pictures’ Adam Rolston and David Braithwaite are the producers, and Paul Grindey and Picnik Entertainment’s Nicola Pearcey are the show’s executive producers. Production on the film will begin later this year.